Italy's high Court of
Cassation on Thursday upheld a 30-year term for Danilo Restivo
in the September 1993 murder of 16-year-old Elisa Claps in
Potenza.
Restivo is serving a life sentence with a 40-year tariff in
Britain for the November 2002 murder of Heather Barnett in
Bournemouth, England.
The two crimes showed evidence of similarities in
ritualistic placing of hair on the bodies.
Restivo, who was unemployed and living with his parents
when he killed Claps, was convicted of the murder in absentia in
2011 and the sentence was upheld on appeal in 2013.
The Sicilian native and former Potenza resident then
appealed to the Cassation Court, Italy's highest court of
appeal.
Claps' remains were found in a Potenza church roof nook in
2010.
The daughter of a tobacconist and a clerk, Claps was an
honor student and a devoted catholic, with ambitions to became a
surgeon and work with Doctors Without Borders.
She wrote in her diary that she felt sorry for the
insistent Restivo and, despite misgivings, agreed to meet
Restivo at the 15th-century Church of the Most Holy Trinity in
the centre of the city.
Restivo asked for a date pretending he had a love affair
with a friend of hers.
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